So,
what would drive second wife Shelly Barreras to spend half of her 2006
Thanksgiving Day perched atop a billboard 50 feet above the ground in
Albuquerque, New Mexico?

The
facts are not in dispute. Essentially, first wife Viola Trevino gave new
meaning to Paternity Fraud when she created a “virtual daughter” based
on a DNA sample from her ex-husband’s adult daughter. With the help of
accomplices, she created a Child that Never Existed but that came complete
with a Birth Certificate, a Social Security Card, a Medicare Card, and
a judicial claim for child support that reached the sum of $20,000.

Never
mind that ex-husband Steve Barreras had a vasectomy a year prior to the
alleged “birth” which left him with a zero sperm count. Barreras made
multiple attempts to set the record straight with the New Mexico Department
of Human Services, without success. With their “business as usual” attitude,
the ever-willing Child Support Enforcement Division went after Barreras
had collected and collected and collected. Finally, it took court action
forced by media exposure to get Governor Bill Richardson to demand an
investigation into how his state agency not only collaborated in the fraud
but resisted attempts to expose it.

The
immediate problem leading to a Thanksgiving Day for Shelly Barreras atop
an Albuquerque billboard is that Governor Bill Richardson’s alleged pledge
to return the fraudulently obtained child support funds never materialized.

The
larger and long-term problem, however, lies far from picturesque Albuquerque
and is far more difficult to resolve. The most critical parts of the long-term
problem are two presumptions built into every state’s child support system:
the mother always is a truthful victim whose basic needs ever are under
funded while the father always lies, hides assets, and squanders money
on fancy cars and loose women.

Unfortunately,
the general public, elected officials, and legislatures throughout the
nation have bought into these fraudulent presumptions to such a degree
that over the past four decades they have been increasing child support
awards to mothers year by year.

What
makes this entire process so tragic is that current empirical research
clearly demonstrates that, when children are involved, divorce is almost
always initiated by the mothers who are aware that they are almost certain
to get custody of the children. Also, post-divorce, the mothers generally
are better off financially than the fathers when special tax benefits
to custodial mothers and direct support of the children by divorced dads
are factored in. What is most critical is that the empirical research
reality is the exact opposite of the false presumptions upon which family
court judges and state child support enforcement agencies operate.

So,
what to do?

First,
the State of New Mexico clearly owes Shelly and Steve Barreras the money
it fraudulently stole from them and should pay up promptly. Second, Governor
Bill Richardson, whom it is rumored is interested in higher office, should
count neither on the vote of any man nor any woman willing to climb a
50 foot billboard nor any woman who may sympathize with her. Third and
most importantly, it is long past time to reform the child support formulas
of every state with an eye to shifting them from models based on “income
shares” to models based on the actual costs of rearing a child – with
these costs distributed across the real expenses incurred by mothers and
fathers when their children are in their care.

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We all
owe Shelly Barreras a vote of thanks for drawing attention to this problem
and for making the world a better place in which to live – one billboard
at a time.

What
makes this entire process so tragic is that current empirical research
clearly demonstrates that, when children are involved, divorce is almost
always initiated by the mothers who are aware that they are almost certain
to get custody of the children.